Legendary Auto Designer Tom Daniel & Motorized Toolbox Project Update - Stacey David's Gearz S16 E13

foreign [Music] now you're watching gears brought to you by Holley Performance Products fuel your passion and Cornwell tools the choice of professionals without a doubt the most important aspect of a successful vehicle is the design and the shape of it because automotive design is an art form and if there's not something in the shape of the vehicle that inspires a passion in us or a desire to own it we're not going to buy it doesn't matter what color it is it doesn't matter how fast it is if the shape is wrong we don't want it and there have been some amazing vehicles roll out of the factories over the years that have become cultural icons inspiring car enthusiasts everywhere from classics to muscle cars to sports cars to trucks there have been some great designs however there was one designer that single-handedly influenced more people than all of those other vehicles and all of those other designers combined and ironically he never built any of his vehicles and none of them were ever available at a dealership now his came in Little Boxes and you were the one that put them together and because of that all of these cars had a huge influence on everybody that touched them which is all of us his name was Tom Daniel here's his story as a toddler in California in the middle of the depression Tom's first mechanical influences were the big steam shovels and locomotives and chain driven Mack trucks that rumbled around as the 50s rolled around young Tom was immersed in the Southern California car culture ripping around with friends and being crazy and he had already started to draw cars but it was the Creations coming out of George barris's shop down the road that really stirred his imagination with a little of my mother and uh at East L.A when I was in just starting junior high school so I had to take a Transit bus about 10 miles south to Huntington Park to Gage Avenue junior high school and it just so happened that the Barris Brothers shop was fairly close by so I started saying some really neat cars on the street that caught my eye this led him to art school and eventually a job with GM where he designed the hood on the 61-66 GM trucks unfortunately his time at GM was short-lived as family problems forced Tom to leave General Motors and return to LA but that didn't stop them from drawing cars and trucks well it started initially with the drawings that I was doing for Robbie custom because I did this guest pad for I don't know 10 12 years I was always looking around for side work you know to buy pencil and paper and stuff thank you but it wasn't just the magazines taken notice of the Innovative designs coming from Tom Builders were too and it wasn't long before Tom Daniels Creations were rolling out of none other than George barris's shop the surf Woody started the ball rolling when it made the cover of Hot Rod Magazine but it was the monster coach Dracula and the bat cycle that put Tom Daniels designs in front of a massive TV audience Ferris called me about this uh this new TV show that was going to be a comedy about the Munster Family a monster show for anything needed it he needed a design for it and that was just one drawing I did it on black Hands-On in silver prismacolor yeah it was a three-quarter view of the car so I dropped that off the barris's place on the way out of town but as amazing as all of that was the world had not yet truly experienced the design Genius of Tom Daniel that happened when he became a design consultant at Monogram Models to hit him between the eyes with designs like The Paddy Wagon the iced tea the beer wagon and what would become the best-selling model car kit of all time the Red Baron in the back of my mind for a long time was this idea of using the the helmet German Helmet on a T Bucket because it looked like it would fit yeah and then that that took off like Atlas rocket so outlandishly cool and edgy where the Tom Daniel designs that young kids flocked to the stores to get the newest design and people couldn't get enough of them so Tom kept the hits coming and over an eight-year period he produced almost 80 designs that became model kits as well as diecast and Hot Wheels cars and the automotive design world had its first Superstar unfortunately things change Trends come and go and companies change their corporate structure and hard times hit the nation uh I went on some really hard times in the in the in the 70s when the oil embargo hit my dream home went into foreclosure so in 1979 Tom said goodbye to California and moved to Arizona and he opened up an art gallery that focused on more traditional art and he allowed his hot rod pass to Fade Into Obscurity however you can't leave the size of Mark that Tom did and then just disappear especially when his son Kelly inherited the same artistic gifts that his dad had so as demand for reissues of Tom Daniel kits began to rise Tom insisted that Kelly do some of the new box art for the new releases and the results are spectacular but even though Tom has been out of the spotlight for a long time his creative gift has not stopped up because that's not something you can just turn off literally every corner of his house is crammed with models and paintings and all kinds of artwork but all of this stuff all of this art all of these renderings and drawings and models this is not the True Legacy of Tom Daniel no His True Legacy is in the millions of young gear heads that he influenced by injecting just a little bit of his crazy think outside the box imagination as we built his kits no other designer has ever done that to that level that's why there is only one Tom Daniel just like there's only one Red Baron [Music] a successful Automotive project takes planning and organization but instead of using an old tablet or notebook there's the gears Deluxe project planning book this was designed to help you lay out a project the parts the tools costs and keep it organized with colored tabs a pouch for receipts and even a place to attach photos if you decide to sell the vehicle it serves as a complete history of what's been done if you have a project or plan on starting one the gears project planning book is the best way to lay it out and make it happen foreign [Music] gears on the road brought to you by POR 15 permanent restoration products for professionals peace and I'll start this show today's on the road is a bit different because the subject is not a random stranger but a musician friend of mine named Tim Watson now obviously Tim's a gear head but he's also a top level fiddle player and has played professionally with virtually everybody over the years matter of fact if you came to Nashville in the 80s or 90s and went to Opryland theme park or rode the General Jackson Showboat you probably experienced Tim Watson and his band Black Creek [Music] however even though he plays music for a living Tim is a typical Gearhead and he's got plenty of junk and projects cluttering up his shop but the main reason we wanted to drop by Tim's place is that in typical Car Guy fashion he's got a couple of projects that have gotten stalled over the years and we wanted to see if we could help get him back on track the first being a really cool early 70s AMX Javelin my dad bought this car new man and my for my sister in 73 and she drove it in high school and then I inherited it so I drove it in high school I built the engine for it when I was in the ninth grade check it out this is I spent a bunch of money to get this Cal induction hood actually a functional cowl induction hood because you don't see them anymore no the Hood's worth as much as the car I need to get this sucker going before I die I got the the tick tock Dash and all every option yeah we need to put this thing together that you can get for it I got the second project that Tim has is a complete departure from the full-blown restoration that's going on with the javelin this is an old beat up Suzuki Samurai that's just as much of a character as Tim himself oh this is my pride and joy okay this baby right here I've had this thing since 1990. okay now is it all stock is it if you swap the motor or done anything bone stock but I built everything I went through and built the transmission and transfer case and yeah pulled the engine resealed it but other than that you know there's timing belt stuff like that but I just keep it keep on top of it but man the sucker bulletproof how is this thing for rust most of it's okay but underneath's getting pretty bad I got to uh I need to protect it with something well you have said the magic words because I got some stuff here for you this is some pr15 stuff this is some cleaners and degreasers oh you put that on when you're getting ready to paint some stuff oh and then check this out what you got man that's a metal prep that you can work that out some more Degreaser and then you've got the paint over rust paint so you don't have to strip it right over it you want to take some time equation there yeah it makes a great undercoating like underneath that AMX yeah oh that's awesome but anyway and I got a whole gallon of that for you so I I'm gonna need it what you need to do is dip that Fiddle in there yeah yeah no rust on my fiddle and with that our job here is done at least for now until I can get back and help Tim dig into that Javelin and start putting it back together you know if you had a blower sticking out of the hood about that it would look like the mail gives you the Mad Max yeah I've got another hit I bet you did you we wouldn't cut that one no I would but I know you would you know a while back we started a build up on three motorized tool boxes the purpose to show that you don't have to have a lot of money or have a big shop to have fun with mechanical things matter of fact every car builder every racer every fabricator you've ever heard of started out just like you did messing with go-karts and quads or motorcycles or snowmobiles whatever they could get their hands on so the idea here is to encourage you to get out into your Shopper garage and build something cool with whatever you got and in our case that's tool boxes so this little toolbox here is going to be powered by that 440 snowmobile engine with a propeller on it that some guy had on a John Boat that's going to be awesome then the next box is going to be spliced together with that old derelict pulling tractor that has a thousand cc Honda motorcycle engine on it and then and the last box the big one on the end is going to be Blended together with that old zero turn Dixie Chopper lawnmower so with that in mind we laid out the criteria for this project number one the boxes have to move under their own power number two they have to utilize as much of the toolbox frame as possible number three we need to keep the box and the drawers as functional as possible and number four the main components need to be used junk from swap meets or eBay or Marketplace next we came up with a design for each box now with that done it's time to start cutting and putting things together now the idea here is to do the least amount of damage possible to the metal in the paint because we want to reuse as much of that as we can so our main cutting tools are going to be a cut off wheel an airsaw and a Sawzall okay with this inner panel removed you can see our frame rails and the outer wall here now we need to keep these frame rails because that's what we're going to bolt to but we need to lose this skin right here so where do you cut well you might be tempted just to cut right down alongside this frame rail but this is not a piece of square tubing this is a U-shaped channel that is then spot welded see the welds there to the outer skin so if you cut right down there and cut that flange off nothing's going to be connected to the outer wall so you would have to run a weld down that line to reconnect it obviously that's going to burn the paint cause a lot of extra metal work so don't want to have to do that if you don't have to so we're going to cut right down along the flange here and take these center pieces out [Music] and this is what is known in a project as the point of no return you are committed now now I know you're probably looking at those holes and at that Mower and going man I'm not following what you're doing here you will it'll be clear trust me there's a method to the madness but while we're cutting we're going to move back here and get rid of a piece of this back wall so we can slide that steering axle in here and unlike the front I'm going to reuse some of this panel so I'm going to try not to destroy it okay now it's time to turn our attention to the mower and according to our measurements if we cut this Frame right here at the front axle and remove these outer frame rails that will allow these four inner frame rails to slide right inside the box and mount to the inside then we will take these frames here and mount them to the outside of the box which means all this subframe will be inside the box now notice we've got room for the levers to work and all kinds of stuff so it is time to get cutting and the tool here will be the Sawzall [Music] foreign ly see the way these two things are going together now the way we're going to make the connection is that we're going to weld a piece of angle iron to the frames on the mower and that will give us a surface to bolt to the inner frame rails of the box then we're going to come down here and do the same thing on this end that's going to give us an internal Mount then we're going to take a long piece of metal here take it down to the floor to a plate tie it into the lower frame rails that's going to give us a super strong connection right here at the Joint then back here in the back you can see how the steering axle is going to come through now we're going to put it in by triangulating it front and rear on both sides it's going to be super strong and obviously you can see we're going to need to widen this axle a little bit to clear the box but that's the basic outline of the mower box now basically we're going to sit here put our feet there and drive it that direction swinging the tail end around man this think it's going to be awesome unfortunately we're out of time today on this next time we're going to jump on one of the other boxes [Music] you know one of the first true freedoms you experience as a kid is that first bicycle man it becomes your transportation to the world or at least the local neighborhood and in my neighborhood man we all had bikes and we'd stick playing cards in the spokes and we'd suck on black licorice make it look like we were big biker dudes and it was magic but a bike wasn't just about Transportation no it became an extension of your personality and there were all kinds of bikes out there there were 10 speeds there were mountain bikes there were stingrays there were BMX bikes and they all had their strengths and weaknesses and that's where the idea for the story of the purple bicycle came from because just like a bike might wish it had the talents or skills of another bike so do we sometimes Overlook our god-given talents and wish we had somebody else's talents skills because they seem to be better than ours it's a simple lesson but something we all need to be reminded of from time to time foreign [Music] and now it's time for another quick tip today's quick tip is for anybody who's thinking about cutting their project in half now you're probably thinking why would you want to do that well actually it's pretty common if you're going to put modern suspension underneath your project chances are you may have to cut the frame now before you make the cut though there's some things you need to think about first of all what's going to happen to the two halves when you cut well for example this mower you can see all the weight is at the back so when we cut this thing in half this thing's going to stand up and probably take you with it so to keep that from happening we made a little adjustable wheel back here to support it to also allow us to roll the back half around then the other thing to think about is the frame rails now as you can see here there's a lot of factory cross members on these frame rails so they shouldn't move when we cut it but if you don't have cross members you'll want to temporarily weld a brace in place to keep them from moving when you make the cut now if you take care of these two things you can cut away to your heart's content if you'd like to learn more tips to make your life easier in the shop check out the tips page on the website and now Lube Tech brought to you by Hot Shot secret powered by science [Music] there's no question that engines have changed a lot over the years I mean now we have superchargers and turbochargers and fuel injection and modern Electronics I mean we got stuff that people would not even have dreamed about a hundred years ago but what hasn't really changed is the basic idea behind the internal combustion engine I mean it's basically Controlled Chaos here you got explosions happening then you have a bunch of metal Parts spinning and moving and just a thin coat of oil is what keeps it all from self-destructing but where did this concept come from I mean who dreamed this up well for the answer to that we got to go back in time way back to 1866. with the end of the Civil War the Industrial Revolution really began to pick up steam literally the steam engine was the power source for the future and how to keep it properly lubricated was an issue enter one Dr John Ellis who took petroleum lube and created a unique lubricating oil that would flow into all of the metal surfaces and prevent damage as they spun and moved this was the beginning of motor oil as we know it and the name of John Ellis's company was Valvoline but as the automobile began to hit its stride as the main transportation for Americans many other oil companies joined in and they all claimed to have the best product but eventually the products that always came out on top were the ones that did their testing in extreme environments like racing or keeping our military rolling during the war now to keep up with the changing technology the 50s saw the introduction of all climate oils and multi viscosity oils and the 60s introduced racing oils to protect high performance engines on the street or on the track and it just keeps going today we have high mileage oils and synthetic oils for today's modern cars and trucks and we've also seen the rise of additives that are designed to take your existing oil and push it to a level that oil alone can't do and all of these advancements are great for your engine but it does bring up the question with all of these products on the market how do you know which ones to use and the answer is simple just like back in the day utilize the ones that are tested on the racetrack with the military or on emergency vehicles and have the data to back it up because just like back then the good ones will always rise to the top what are you working on brought to you by Woodward fabrication selling quality metal working equipment since 1966. today's what are you working on comes from Richard and he is from Braxton Mississippi and his project is a 1969 Subaru 360. if you don't know what that looks like here it is that's a cute little car isn't it yeah well Richard said he fell in love with these things when he worked on one as a mechanic's Apprentice in college unfortunately as soon as he got it home he made an unpleasant Discovery he said he found out the motor was completely thrashed into missing parts it was not salvageable so he looked around and he happened to have a tailor done utility truck sitting beside it and he said why don't I take the 36 volt electric motor out of that and put it in the Subaru the electric motor from the Taylor done was mounted above the crankshaft where the Pistons and cylinders used to be then what's the mechanical side was complete he started on the body he said the floor pans he repaired with leftover sheet metal from the floor pan he had from a 57 Chevy that's awesome and he said now almost a year of cutting and replacing metal the car currently sits in primer waiting its baby blue paint and in the meantime he added a battery rack you can see it here where the rear seat used to be now you're wondering how does it run well he's pretty honest about that he said it has a range of about 30 miles and goes about 30 miles an hour now it doesn't matter what you think about electric vehicles this this is Gearhead gold man you've got to admit that the guy has taken all kinds of junk put it together that's no different than what we're doing on the toolboxes with the lawn mowers so to celebrate a guy that is truly thinking outside the box we went to the guys at Woodward Fab and we're going to give you one of these little wheelie English Wheels Richard now this is a working English wheel you got all kinds of anvils you got everything that you need to do all kinds of metal work on small panels and believe me you're going to need that on your project also if anybody needs a project planning book it is you so we're going to give you one of those this will allow you to keep track of all the serial numbers and everything that you are putting on that project if you ever need to service it or work on it also we're going to give you one of our gears T-shirts because obviously you are a real Gearhead then we're going to give you a gift card from Holly this will allow you to get some Holly products to hopefully offset the cost of the project a little bit and then finally we're going to give you a stunt double die cast now for the rest of you guys if you want to get in on this and get your project featured on the show you got to send it to us go to our website go to gearsnation and submit it into what are you working on the website's also the place to find out more information on any products you may have seen on the show any gears merchandise and how to join gears Nation you can also see gears episodes for free free on our YouTube channel and become a channel member that way you get bonus content and you get early access to all the new episodes also don't forget to check us out on Amazon Prime for Gears and the gears restoration series finally don't forget to like us on Facebook and Instagram and if you're a radio person make sure you check out our podcast Tales of a Gearhead all right that wraps it up for us today hopefully you feel inspired to get out there and get a project of your own you're going to find that if you're looking there are projects all around you that will fit your budget and your skill level so get out there get something and get going [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Official Stacey David

Views: 8,699

Keywords: staceydavid, GearZ, Hot Rods, Trucks, mavtv, revntv, motortrend, stacey david

Id: XSa730i_6YE

Length: 25min 32sec (1532 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 19 2022